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Sony’s “Play at Home” initiative continues with a huge stack of excellent games, including Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Subnautica, that are free to own for a limited time. No PlayStation Plus membership is required, meaning you can keep these games forever.

From now through April 22nd at 11:59PM PT, the following titles will be free to claim for PS4 and PS5 users: ABZÛ, Enter the Gungeon, Rez Infinite, Subnautica, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Moss, Thumper, and Paper Beast. The last four games require a PSVR headset to play. PS5 owners will need a PlayStation Camera adapter to use the headset with the console.

Sony plans to offer more games as part of the initiative until sometime in June. Currently, Sony is offering Ratchet & Clank, which PS4 and PS5 owners can redeem at no cost until March 31st. The company is also planning to give away Horizon Zero Dawn for free beginning on April 19th.

Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire messaging platform Discord Inc. for $10 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter, as the software giant seeks to deepen its consumer offerings.

Microsoft and Discord are in exclusive talks and could complete a deal next month, assuming the negotiations don’t fall apart, the people said.

Originally favored by gamers, San Francisco-based Discord offers voice, text and video chatting. The platform’s popularity has surged since the pandemic took hold as people stay home and connect online—as has that of other chat services, like Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp and Signal Messenger LLC. Discord has been considering an IPO.

Microsoft, which has a market value of more than $1.7 trillion, has been on the hunt for an acquisition that would help it reach more consumers. Last summer, it held talks to buy the popular video-sharing app TikTok amid a high-profile geopolitical standoff prompted by the Trump administration, before abandoning the effort.

VentureBeat reported this week that Discord was exploring a sale and had entered exclusive discussions with an unnamed suitor.

Google is working on a new feature for Assistant on Android called “Memory” that could transform it into into a handy organizer, according to a recent APK spotted by 9to5Google. The idea is that you can save screen content, images, reminders, ideas and more in one place, then find it again through a smart search function.

According to the app screens, you can store items in Memory using a verbal Google Assistant command or use a home screen shortcut. Those include articles, books, contacts, events, flights, hotels, images, movies, music, notes, photos, places, playlists, products, recipes, reminders, restaurants, screenshots, shipments, TV shows, videos, and websites. It will also save screenshots, URLs, location and other information happening in context.

Once you’ve saved items, you’ll be able to see them in a Memory feed located next to the current Snapshot menu. It will show up in reverse chronological order as cards labeled “Older Memories” and “Today.” For certain Google Drive items like Docs or Sheets, the card will show a preview. Depending on what you’ve stored, Google will let you do things like “Search flight status,” “Watch Trailer,” “Cooking Time,” “Track Shipment” and more. If you’ve created any reminders, they also get saved to memory.

All told, Memory looks like a supercharged, freeform voice reminder app with advanced search capability that could help users stay better organized. As of right now, however, it’s still in testing — so there’s no word yet on when or even if it will launch to the public.

Bang & Olufsen’s latest pair of headphones are the Beoplay HX. They’re over-ear, noise canceling, and offer up to a truly impressive 35 hours of battery life. The headphones launch in black today for $499 (£499 / €499), but there’s a white model coming at the end of April, to be followed by a white and brown version in May.

At $499, the Beoplay HX are among the more expensive wireless noise-canceling headphones available. But this isn’t unfamiliar territory for Bang & Olufsen: the previous Beoplay H9 headphones cost exactly the same — and this is the company that also sells an $800 pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Thirty-five hours of battery life beats pretty much all competitors (and it rises up to 40 hours if you turn ANC off). The $549 AirPods Max are rated at just 20 hours with ANC on, while our top pick $350 Sony WH-1000XM4 can go for up to 30 hours. Others, like the Sennheiser Momentum 3 Wireless or Shure Aonic are rated for 16 hours and 20 hours, respectively.

Image: Bang and Olufsen

Beyond battery life, the other thing your $499 gets you is build quality. The Beoplay HX’s ear cushions are made from lambskin with a memory foam interior, while the headband uses cow hide and knitted fabric in its construction. The ear cups themselves feature an aluminum disc surrounded by a recycled plastic housing, and the arm sliders are also aluminum.

The rest of the Beoplay HX specs are typical. There’s a USB-C port for charging, a 3.5mm jack for wired connections, buttons on the left and right ear cup, and also touch controls on just the right side. The headphones support Bluetooth 5.1, and for codecs, you get aptX Adaptive, AAC, and SBC. Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair are both included for easy pairing with their respective platforms. And yes, the headphones come with a 3.5mm cable in the box, unlike the AirPods Max.